of twenty-four. The marriage took place February 24, 1662-3. His second daughter, Mary, is reported upon oath to have said that it was no news to hear of his wedding, but if she could hear of his death that was something. His third wife proved to be a blessing to him as long as he lived. She was pretty and had golden hair; she sang to his accompaniments on the organ or bass viol, and was sufficiently alive to his intellectual requirements as to like to talk with him about Hobbes and other learned men. Not long after their marriage they went to live in Artillery Walk, Bunhill Fields. This was his last residence, and considerable is known about the details of his domestic economy there. He had a man servant named Greene, who, it is said, was able to read aloud to him from the Hebrew Bible. His chief recreations were walking in his garden, swinging in a chair, and making music. Andrew Marvell, Cyriack Skinner, and other distinguished men used often to visit him. He is reported as having been "extremely pleasant in conversation. . . though satirical." "Paradise Lost" was completed by 1663 and revised during the summer of 1665, while, in order to escape from the plague that was then devastating London, he went with his wife and his three daughters to Chalfont St. Giles in Buckinghamshire. His friend Elwood, the Quaker, lived near there, and to him Milton loaned a copy of the great poem. The Quaker approved of it, but suggested that he had said much of Paradise Lost but nothing of Paradise Found. This suggestion resulted in the shorter epic. The next year — that of Dryden's Annus Mirabilis - the great fire still further abridged his fortunes by destroying the house in which he had been born and which he still owned. A few years later his comfort and that of his household was increased by the departure of his daughters, who were sent out to learn embroidery for their own support. After the publication of his great epic visitors were frequent, and we have several descriptions of his appearance, both as he sat out of doors on his porch and as he was indoors, in a room hung with rusty green, "sitting in an elbow chair, black clothes and neat enough, pale but not cadaverous, his hands and fingers gouty and with chalk stones"; his habits at table were abstemious, but his later days were troubled by gout. His last poem was the perfect Greek tragedy "Samson Agonistes," which has an interesting autobiographic import. This was written in 1671. Three years later "the gout struck in," and he died on November 8, 1674, and was buried beside his father in the Church of St. Giles, Cripplegate. All his learned and great friends in London, and a "friendly concourse of the vulgar," attended the funeral. Milton had intended to cut off his "unkind" and "undutiful" children with only that portion of his estate that was due it from the Powells, but they contested the nuncupative will and received as their share of their father's estate about Lioo each, while the widow was left with a pittance of £600. She retired to her native Cheshire, and died in 1727, having survived her husband nearly fifty-three years. Among her effects were copies of his "Paradise Lost and Regained" and two juvenile portraits. Mary, the younger daughter, died the same year, having married a weaver or silk mercer named Clark, by whom she had ten children, only two of whom survived her to have issue. The collections made by Milton toward his Latin dictionary have been embodied in later dictionaries. Several of his prose writings were discovered long after his death. In one of them—a Latin treatise on Christian Doctrine which he claims to be founded directly on the Bible - he boldly advanced many theories at variance with the beliefs of the Church-perhaps the most shocking being his arguments in favour of polygamy. No one can study Milton's life without winning a deep respect and even admiration for the man. To him, duty-"stern daughter of the voice of God"— was ever paramount. Unflinchingly he sacrificed his inclinations and his pleasures in order to take the place whereto he was called in the Councils of the State. If ever a man was anointed by the Muses it was Milton; yet, conscious as he was of his poetic powers, he threw himself heart and soul into the gross battle of politics, and for twenty of the richest years of his life allowed his cherished schemes to slumber. As a man, therefore, he is worthy of reverence, even though we may not entirely sympathise with some of his views or actions. As a poet he takes rank among the few whom all the world recognises as greatest, Homer, Vergil, Dante, Chaucer, Shakspere. His delicate musical ear taught him to modulate his numbers with a skill unknown to any other English poet. Well has he been called "that mighty arc of song- the divine Milton." As Wordsworth says, the sonnet in his hand "became a trumpet whence he blew soul-animating strains"; his minor poems are marvels of elegance and grace, but by his "Paradise Lost " he made himself as it were the prophet of English theology, the work supplementing the Bible in the beliefs of many, and strongly colouring the popular conception of Satan and the fall of man. But aside from its theological import, it is by the grandeur of theme and dignity of treatment almost superhuman- a work of which all who speak the English tongue will be forever proud. N. H. D. |